The Yeshiva families have made a point of integrating into the local community, rather than creating an exclusive, closed community of their own. Unlike other groups that have moved to town (attracted by low housing costs), they have not built their own segregated neighborhoods, nor have they established their own separate schools. They live in many different neighborhoods and they send their children to the public schools. Many, in fact, have begun teaching in the public schools and have raised the level of teaching for the benefit of the whole town.

The community

The new integrated community (Yeshiva newcomers and young local families) meets in the Bnei akiva youth center and synagogue. Here they pray together, spend shabbatot and holidays together, send their children for youth activities, hear shiurim (lectures), and discuss their social/educational goals for the town.

It has become the physical center of a vibrant, healthy, growing young community and has attracted the attention and admiration of the entire town

A force to unity

Encouraged by its initial success, the community is convinced that if it reaches out as friends, neighbors, and equals, it can be a force to unify the different groups in Yerucham and keep even more of the town's best children from moving away.